


rising

by thir13enth



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, based on the events of s2e11, from the POV of shay's grandmother, more or less experimental
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 08:59:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9483863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thir13enth/pseuds/thir13enth
Summary: you think you see the future in her.—based on the events of s2e11





	

**Author's Note:**

> there's an accompanying edit that i created, which you can check out [here](http://ahumanintraining.tumblr.com/post/156468377247/this-is-what-hope-feels-like) ;)

As long-lived as the Balmerans are, you regret your granddaughter has never seen a day without captivity and has never lived a day of freedom.

“Grandmother?” Shay asks you one late evening, after the dishes are put away.

“Yes, child?” you reply, but you know by sound of your granddaughter’s voice and the look in her eyes what question lies on her tongue.

It’s always the same.

“Can you tell me what the sky looks like again?”

You hide a sigh behind the creak of the faucet as you turn it shut — tight, because you can’t risk a single drop of water to waste on this desolate land. You turn to your granddaughter and offers her a gentle smile. Shay’s eyebrows raise eagerly to hear your words, the child’s yellow eyes glowing bright like the evening sunset of your long-gone memories.

“Let’s take a seat, shall we?” you offer first. Your back begs to rest, and your knees are giving way.

Shay nods — the gracious patient and respectful child her mother raised her to be — and takes you by the arm and to guide you slowly to the nearest seat, a flat stone so worn down it feels like royal marble on your coarse skin. You sit, letting out a long exhale of relief for the day’s work has been done.

“You told me the outside is warm, like when you sit next to a fire, and without cave winds to interrupt you with a chilly breeze,” Shay reminds you.

“Indeed,” you reply. And then you tell her about the sky.

You’re certain Shay knows your descriptions word-for-word by now, for the number of evenings that you’ve told her your recollections. You wish you could give her more and you wish that your language allowed you to tell more than just the promise of colors and the concept of infinity and you wish that age didn’t let your fondest memories lift away so easily like sand in the desert wind.

But alas, seeing your face light up as you tell her about how things were in the past — before the Galra, before the war of resistance, before the enslavement, before the Balmera grew weak, before the soil crumbled beneath your feet and the forests turned gray like ash and the river water became a murky white _—_ must be enough solace for your granddaughter.

So you tell her about the sky. You tell her about how you could see for eternities into the distance and could pick out a single star in the night to focus on. You tell her about the golds, scarlets, and ambers that splashed across the sky when the twin suns dipped below the mountaintops. You tell her how the clouds glowed a sweet lavender before they ripened into soft rain, the rumble of the incoming storm vibrating under your then-softer feet.

All too soon, your words run dry like the vanishing rivers, and your thoughts turn bleak like the dust storms that you sometimes awaken to in the middle of the night, the high-pitched shrieking wind slipping in through the cracks of the caves. You don’t have more to say, you only have more to regret — that you didn’t fight harder to protect your sacred lands, that you didn’t appreciate the nature you were born to before it disappeared with your youth and your optimism.

“I hope one day to see the surface,” your granddaughter then says.

“You will,” you reassure her, even if your crooked smile gives away your doubts. “You will.”

.

.

You didn’t think that you would ever witness the rekindling of the Balmera before your very eyes.

The healing of your planet comes in waves of aquamarine blues and turquoise greens, spreading under the topaz brown fingertips of the young Altean, and the fight ends in the battle against the great Galran mechanical monster and the five Lion weapon her royal majesty leads.

She is princess, but only in title — for she is truly a queen.

You can see it in her determined eyes and in her resolute smile. You can see it in her tired shoulders and in her callused hands. You can see it in her furrowed brows, her tied silver hair, her straight-backed stance, and you can see it in her sharp commands to the Paladins and in the tight fists of her strong arms.

You see greatness and revolutions and legacy in her — but most importantly, the princess leaves that same strength in your weary people, and now upheaved, your people thrive once more and your people think that maybe there _is_ a chance to stand before the Galrans.

And you?

Well. You see the smile on your granddaughter’s face when she finally sets her bright eyes to the infinite sky, the colors streaked across the horizon no longer a white-lie promise but a reality filled with opportunity.

That is more than enough of an everlasting gift to you. You think you can pass now, say goodbye to your loved ones now — and you would sleep easy. Your ghost would find no reason to haunt the wastelands of the Balmera, chasing after dreams, and your soul can rest without grief but that of needing to leave before you can witness the complete restoration of your home.

So when the princess returns to your planet — now greener, now flourishing — you accept her with welcome arms and rekindled spirits. She says she needs help, and without hesitation, you, your people, and the Balmera itself offers her the grandest of the crystals that lie within the most hidden caves, a luminescent blue pearl that has been sitting at the heart of your home for millennia.

You give your heart to her.

The princess raises her hands to the crystal, closes her eyes, and begins the ceremony.

She commences to unearth the power, and you feel a rumble under your tough feet, and you smile to yourself. It reminds you of a storm incoming — the soft rain that showered on the green grasslands from the sweet lavender clouds in the cotton candy sky, pink from the rising light of the twin suns.

It’s a sight that you no longer need to remember, and it’s a sight that your granddaughter now has the choice to see.

“Of what is that rumble?” Shay asks you, in a quiet whisper. “Perhaps because a crystal this big has never been asked for.”

You open your eyes, and you give her a gentle smile.

“No. This is different,” you tell her.

This, you know, is the feeling of hope.


End file.
